(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to agriculture and more particularly to agricultural harvesting vehicles. Farmers are the ones having ordinary skill in this art.
(2) Description of the Related Art
As set out in the BARNES et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,799, it is desirable to have a vehicle which can be guided along a designated path. Normally the designated path by which the vehicle will be guided will be a row, which might either be a series of stalks as described in the BARNES et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,148,873, or it might be a furrow as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,799. The issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,990 identified above illustrates a Row Follower to follow the stalks.
An encoder is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,148,873 is used to measure the deviation of the Row Follower from the vehicle to indicate the corrections to be applied to the steering mechanism of the vehicle as more fully set out in U.S. Pat. No. 5,121,799.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,764 describes an encoder housing commercially on sale at the time this application was filed to structurally mount the encoder and to protect it from rough handling and from moisture as well as dust and sand.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,990 as well as the U.S. Pat. No. 5,313,769 are concerned with stripping cotton. In the process of stripping cotton all of the fruit (generally called bolls) on the stalk are stripped therefrom. Other harvesters, and more particularly cotton pickers, are widely used which harvest only cotton from open bolls by snagging the cotton on rotating spindles. In this process it is normal for the gathering head to include a lifting plate which, at least partially, lifts the limbs of the cotton stalk from a low position upon the ground to bring them into a position to be harvested by the spindles. However, care is normally taken with cotton pickers to only pick the open cotton and, as far as possible, to avoid damage or to prevent the removal of the un-open bolls from the stalk.